A wide variety of detersive surfactants are known in the literature and in commercial practice. Such surfactants range from common soap to sophisticated betaine and sulfobetaine synthetic surfactants. In general, the continuing search for new detersive surfactants has been the result of the desires of the formulator to meet a growing list of cleaning needs under a wide variety of conditions. Thus, the formulator of laundry detergents must provide products which remove from fabrics a wide variety of soils and stains, ranging from petroleum oils and fatty oils to proteins, carbohydrates, clay and other particulate soils, and mixtures of such soils and stains. Moreover, users of laundry detergents often employ widely disparate laundering conditions, ranging from cold water washing to hot water washing. Since usage habits are becoming less and less uniform, formulators are also required to provide the consumer with products which function well with a wide variety of soils and under a wide variety of usage conditions.
In addition to the above-noted considerations, the formulators of laundry detergents in many areas of the world now find themselves prevented by various regulations from using phosphate detergency builders. Since phosphate builders were a mainstay for many heavy duty laundry detergents, their removal from consumer products has required very substantial reformulation efforts, especially for heavy duty laundry detergents.
Moreover, there is increasingly a perceived need to provide stable, effective detergent compositions which are formulated from renewable resources which do not rely on petrochemicals. In addition, there is a need to provide detergent formulations containing ingredients which perform well in combination with alkyl benzene sulfonate ("LAS") surfactants. Alternatively, the present invention provides high cleaning compositions which do not require the presence of LAS. This is particularly advantageous to formulators who wish to include detersive enzymes in their products, especially heavy duty liquid fabric laundering products, since LAS can degrade and deactivate such enzymes.
The present invention employs the fatty acid amides of glycerol amines to address the aforementioned issues. Such amides provide substantial cleaning advantages, especially when used in conjunction with other detersive surfactants. Furthermore, such amides mainly comprise fatty acid units and glycerol units which, themselves, are available from renewable resources such as plant and animal fats and oils. The amides herein also exhibit sudsing benefits which exceed those of comparable ethanolamides, and demonstrate distinct advantages in solubility and formulatability in "light-duty" liquid detergent compositions, such as hand dishwashing liquids.